Real Weddings, Advice, & Inspiration

Catalyst Wedding Company highlights weddings by and for game-changers. We seek to amplify and empower voices and viewpoints that are usually missing from the Wedding Industrial Complex. We're a community of badass wedding professionals who love all things funky, fresh, diverse, unique, and personality-driven; we convene twice yearly for (un)convention, a collaborative workshop, styled shoot, and dinner party. We're also the publishers of Catalyst Wedding Mag, a resource for couples looking for inspiration and affirmation that doing things differently in wedding-world is not only ok, it's wonderful!

Last week, the self-delusion fell squarely on the shoulders of a Denver-based videography company, Media Mansion. This coupled with the United Methodist Church’s recent vote for restrictions against queer clergy (many whom have sustained my last remaining ounce of faith in Christianity) and queer couples to marry in their churches has many of us worn out, scared, and feeling helpless.

What a horrible situation this puts engaged couples in, especially women. What should be a joyous occasion becomes so much work that you can't even enjoy it. It becomes yet another thing you have to do.

While I want all of us to remember the origins of this historically toxic holiday, I’m also going to acknowledge that a lot of people need this day. And if you need this holiday, I want you to give yourself permission to enjoy it.

Without a doubt this ruling will be used as precedence for even more discriminatory cases. It is a reminder of the work ahead of us. It is a blow to the spirit and well-being of the LGBTQIA+ community. It is a call to action to those of us who call ourselves allies. So here are three actions to take NOW to respond to this decision.

Being the kid at heart that I am, in addition to celebrations marking a full year of things, I also love celebrating halfs, and last month was the half anniversary of our wedding — one and a half years married ya’ll!!! Throw confetti, release the unicorns, and let Kool & The Gang in to “Celebrate good times, come on!”

Yearning for a successful wedding or to at least not get kicked out of more than one wedding party, I started studying how to be a bride and the history of Western wedding traditions. That’s when I uncovered how wedding traditions were originally designed to pressure women into becoming mothers, to erase their individuality for the sake of family, to give men power over them, and to discriminate against anyone who wasn’t a white, cis heterosexual.

When accusations began to circulate during the last few weeks surrounding sexual harassment and assault in the wedding industry, we at Catalyst created a platform where individuals could anonymously submit their stories without fear of backlash. We don’t know the names of the parties involved, and we don’t need to. You don’t need to know a person’s identity to hear their story. And if you are someone who has been abused, you don’t need to see a person testify in a court of law to feel like you’re less alone.

It’s not unusual that a man who has been told he’s untouchable, that he is a celebrity, and that he is at the top of his field, thinks he can have whatever he wants by whatever means he feels is necessary, but it is reprehensible, and it is time our industry stopped being quiet about it.

When men are socialized from a very young age to seek sex from women and to be the sexual pursuers and initiators, while women are socialized to withhold sex, to flirt, and to read and react to others’ desires, this is a recipe for a rape culture. Make no mistake, based on the woman’s account Aziz was without a doubt sexually coercive, and we believe her and stand with her. But my point here is that a degree of sexual coercion is highly normalized in our culture as romantic, flirtatious, and even a form of foreplay.

As a high school senior photographer for guys in Houston and mom to a handsome little guy, it is my goal to encourage and support young men near and far through my imagery. As the late Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” I have the same dream that my children and the young people that I photograph can live out their days judged by their character and not by the color of their skin.

A couple of weeks after September 11, 2001, I got on a plane, flew to D.C., and joined two women in holy and completely illegal matrimony. Same-sex weddings were a crime in the state of Virginia, carrying a two-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine. I was not concerned about going to prison. I was a tad concerned about terrorism and the war that was breaking out, and a bit worried about my own safety. One of the brides was a Marine, and her father, also a Marine, had threatened to come shoot both brides if he could find them. I did not wish to be shot. I am an avoider of arguments, embarrassing social situations, and conflict of all kinds. I did not wish to be shot or shouted at or even to receive snarky, sarcastic comments. But I also could not stand by, and say no, and refuse to marry this couple of women who loved each other and wanted God’s blessing on their union. So I said yes.

Look y’all. LOOK! 2018 is here, and I’m glad to say that my body is still intact, the zombie apocalypse didn’t happen, and we avoided WWIII... for now. After the Rapture of 2016 when everyone and their mama was beamed up into the ether, we were left wondering what foolishness 2017 had in store for us. Did it pack a wallop or what?! I uninstalled my news and social media apps so many times to avoid having to hear another doomsday headline or read another think piece I almost forgot my passwords. From mass shooting to mass shooting to mass shooting to marches to nazis to Sean Spicer’s mismatched shoes to meltdowns to bans to dreams deferred to investigations to more nazis to protests to confederate statues to the toppling of sexual abusers to black women snatching political wigs, it was almost like Quentin Tarantino directed our entire year. We’ve been through some shit. We’ve weathered plenty of storms on every end — politically, socially, historically, literally, mentally, and financially to the point where we’re pretty much over it. But I didn’t want to write about the complete suckage of the past 365 days. Let’s look at our year with fresh eyes, shall we?

I want to challenge others to remove “single parent” from their vocabulary — or at least challenge this false narrative that we have about single parenthood and deconstruct why we are subconsciously so set on the two parent norm. I don’t think it’s a word we need to “take back,” but I think we need to stop emphasizing the traditional two parent family when we use it and recognize who it hurts. When we use the term parent, we are becoming inclusive of all parents and not emphasizing the stigma that comes along with the word. Yes, I am single. Yes, I’m also a parent. But please don’t keep calling me a single parent. It’s not my key identity, and I am beautifully just so much more.

Behind the scenes, this column has been a part of a crazy journey for me this year. I began this year wanting to start my website and get serious about my makeup artistry business. “Getting serious” about my business meant going into bridal work. I wanted to be taken seriously as an artist and I wanted more than anything to make some real money, ahhkay?! Well, the year is coming to an end and guess how many real weddings I've booked?!! Zero, none, not a single real-life wedding have I booked, and I'm more than okay with that. The truth is that this year took me on such a wild ride that promoting myself as a bridal makeup artist took a back seat...I mean way back. Aside from Liz asking me to write for Catalyst, the staff at Catalyst also accepted my application to be a speaker at their conference! Yeah I know, they’re clearly as out there as I am, but it really happened (laughs). They booked me to come to Richmond, Virginia, to speak at {un}convention—they gave me a mic and everything. Brave people, I tell ya, but it was such an amazing experience, and information should be out soon about where you all can order the footage and watch from home! I’m still reeling from that conference and looking for the next opportunity that I can grab a mic and speak my speech. Until then though I have decided to follow my heart and do what I need to do for me.

The marriage penalty also affects non-disabled couples too. If you or a spouse become disabled while married, a couple must spend-down their assets in order to have the government provide basic needs indefinitely. Financial situations can be so dire, couples pursue divorce just to qualify, allowing the abled-bodied spouse to keep some of their assets. Divorce is a reality that no one should have to face because they got injured or sick.

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Catalyst Wedding Co.

Catalyst Wedding Company highlights weddings by and for game-changers. We seek to amplify and empower voices and viewpoints that are usually missing from the Wedding Industrial Complex. We're a community of badass wedding professionals who love all things funky, fresh, diverse, unique, and personality-driven; we convene twice yearly for (un)convention, a collaborative workshop, styled shoot, and dinner party. We're also the publishers of Catalyst Wedding Mag, a resource for couples looking for inspiration and affirmation that doing things differently in wedding-world is not only ok, it's wonderful!

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